While soil erosion drives land degradation, the impact of erosion on soil microbial communities and multiple soil functions remains unclear. This hinders our ability to assess the true impact of erosion on soil ecosystem services and our ability to restore eroded environments. Here we examined the effect of erosion on microbial communities at two sites with contrasting soil texture and climates. Eroded plots had lower microbial network complexity, fewer microbial taxa, and fewer associations among microbial taxa, relative to non-eroded plots. Soil erosion also shifted microbial community composition, with decreased relative abundances of dominant phyla such as Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Gemmatimonadetes. In contrast, erosion led to an increase in the relative abundances of some bacterial families involved in N cycling, such as Acetobacteraceae and Beijerinckiaceae. Changes in microbiota characteristics were strongly related with erosion-induced changes in soil multifunctionality. Together, these results demonstrate that soil erosion has a significant negative impact on soil microbial diversity and functionality.

Several reviews have analyzed the factors that affect the change in soil organic C (SOC) when forest is converted to agricultural land; however, the effects of forest type and cultivation stage on these changes have generally been overlooked. We collated observations from 453 paired or chronosequential sites where forests have been converted to agricultural land and then assessed the effects of forest type, cultivation stage, climate factors, and soil properties on the change in the SOC stock and the SOC turnover rate constant (k). The percent decrease in SOC stocks and the turnover rate constants both varied significantly according to forest type and cultivation stage. The largest decrease in SOC stocks was observed in temperate regions (52% decrease), followed by tropical regions (41% decrease) and boreal regions (31% decrease). Climate and soil factors affected the decrease in SOC stocks. The SOC turnover rate constant after the conversion of forests to agricultural land increased with the mean annual precipitation and temperature. To our knowledge, this is the first time that original forest type was considered when evaluating changes in SOC after being converted to agricultural land. The differences between forest types should be considered when calculating global changes in SOC stocks.